You have already read hundreds of articles in the index that talk about the latest discoveries and interesting things in the Universe – however, you have certainly not come across an article on our interface in which we deal in detail with our closest neighbors, the planets of the Earth. Solar System. However, we can encounter many strange anomalies and seemingly implausible weather phenomena from a few hundred million kilometers away – whether it is extreme heat, wind gusts of thousands of kilometers per hour or even diamonds falling from the sky.
The planets of the solar system can be classified into two different groups: we can find rocky planets and giant or gas planets – which are so called not because they are not cold enough compared to their rocky counterparts, but because they are composed almost exclusively of gases. Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars belong to the first group, while Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune belong to the latter. It is interesting how the planets are separated independently, with rocky planets found close to the Sun, while gaseous planets are farther away – and this also applies to other star systems.
In the first stop in our series of articles, we take a closer look at Mercury, the planet closest to the Sun and also the smallest planet in the Solar System, which At first glance, it could be an image of the Moon orbiting the Earth, but there are actually many differences between them. Mercury, for example, has a large core containing iron, so it has its own magnetic field—although its strength is about one percent that of Earth's; But at least she has one.
First notes
We do not know exactly when the planet was discovered – records of observations of the celestial body date back to the first millennium BC. The planet has been referred to by many different names over the past millennia – for example, the Babylonians called it Nabu after their messenger god, while Greek astronomers referred to it as Apollo and Hermes. At that time, Mercury had two names:
Because in the fourth century BC they still believed that there were two different planets, depending on whether they observed them at sunrise or sunset.
The Greeks then began to suspect that something was very wrong, until it finally dawned on them that Apollo was actually Hermes and that Hermes was actually Apollo, so from then on they uniformly referred to the planet just as Hermes. Where did the name Mercury come from? The question may arise. Well, the equivalent of the orb used in Hungarian language is taken from the Romans, who named the planet after the Roman god Mercurius, the god of merchants, travellers, orators and thieves. In addition, it was believed that Mercurius was also a messenger of the gods, and that he also accompanied the souls of the dead to the underworld. Interestingly, over time the Romans began to associate the name Mercurius with the Greek name Hermes, but eventually the Roman name became more widespread.
Moon, is that you?
As mentioned, Mercury is very similar to the Moon in appearance – if you put them side by side, the average person might not be able to tell the difference between them. The main reason for this is that Mercury's surface is also covered in many craters, and it does not have a permanent atmosphere. A close look at the planet, which is 70% metal and 30% silicates, was first glimpsed between 1974 and 1975, when Mariner-10 mapped about 45% of Mercury's surface. Work continued by the Messenger spacecraft built by Johns Hopkins University, which flew around Mercury for the first time on January 14, 2008, and again on October 6, 2008 and September 29, 2009.
Thanks to this, we were able to identify another 30 percent of the planet's surface, but most of it was identified after the spacecraft entered orbit around the planet.
“Messenger” did its job heroically, as it was continuously transmitting data to Earth, but in 2015 it ran out of fuel, which led to it colliding with the surface of the innermost planet in the solar system at a speed of more than 14,000 kilometers per hour. This left a crater about 16 meters in diameter.
Burning hell, frozen iceberg
Mercury, being the closest planet to the sun, revolves around its star very quickly. One year on Mercury is equivalent to only 88 Earth days. So, while he's on Earth celebrating his 30th birthday, for example, he'll have to celebrate his 124th birthday on Mercury, no matter how painful it is. Well, not that you can do that anyway, because the planet suffers from inhumane conditions – although the conditions on Mercury still qualify as a Seychelles vacation compared to what awaits humans on Venus – but that's for another article. In contrast, a day on Mercury would last almost forever, as the planet rotates very slowly on its axis. A day on Mercury is equivalent to 176 Earth days, which means that a day on the smallest planet in the solar system is twice the length of a year there.
This is one reason why Mercury's surface temperature ranges between -183 and +427 degrees Celsius, depending on which part of the celestial body is examined. By definition, when the Sun touches the surface perpendicularly, a scorching inferno prevails, while the coldest ones can be measured in the depths of craters near the poles. Interestingly, icy and salt glaciers can also be found at the poles, where ideal conditions for life could prevail at the right depth, at least according to the analysis published by the staff of the Planetary Science Institute (PSI), which supports NASA research, which took similar terrestrial environments. taken into account when preparing the research.
And how long can you survive without all kinds of high-tech protective equipment on the planet? Well, according to the most optimistic estimates, for a maximum of two minutes, during which he will experience the inferno of hell – either burning into coal, or freezing into ice. However, that's still more than he could survive on the next planet, Venus – if he suddenly moved to that planet, he would literally vaporize in a split second. So let us be grateful that the Earth is so kind to us and gives us everything so that life can flourish on it.
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